Taunt suggestion

S

skuter

Dalayan Beginner
I think that tanks taunt should be raised to increase the aggro they get.

Past couple of times I've been in a group with my rogue, I was stealing mob from our paladin tank very easy. Its not even like I was better equiped then him, he has way better equipment then I do. Even without me backstabbing I would often get aggro. I am also 6 levels low then him

Wanelo of both characters
http://www.shardsofdalaya.com/wanelo/chardump5.php?charid=127791 Thats my rogue

http://www.shardsofdalaya.com/wanelo/chardump5.php?charid=1223024 the pally that was tanking

I am not sure if it supose to be like this, but it just seemed that I would get aggro way to easy..
 
We're going to need more details then you've provided to get an idea of whether or not something is wrong with taunt, as you suggested. Such as, was the paladin using his blinds and stuns to keep up with aggro? Naturally your DPS is going to be much higher than a pally's, and given that the taunt code is basically as follows: Succesful taunt = current top aggro + 1, the pally is going to require more then just pure DPS to keep them above on the hate list.
 
Raherin said:
A good rogue won't take agro. Evade ftw.
Click to expand...

You can only evade so often. I get pummelled on Greyson a lot because it either fails or I just can't get it again soon enough.

That's where /s 4 comes in handy, though...
 
Liam said:
Such as, was the paladin using his blinds and stuns to keep up with aggro?
Click to expand...

I think that perhaps this pally did not quite understand his class. Pally stuns are pretty nice for grabbing/maintaining agro iirc.
 
If your tank sucks, open every fight with /style 4, and switch back to your normal style when it becomes available. Either that or use the 'opportunity' to train your other weapons skills (1h blunt, etc.) until they figure out how the hell to maintain aggro.
 
Ya, pally stuns and blinds enable them to maintain agro for regular mobs but not raid ones. Ex balthor/hasrett can hold perfect agro on DHK mobs, Cmal, DN, FG etc. but they can't hold agro for raid mobs. Ex. Most of the dragons inside DHK, PoTorment bosses, PoA etc. I kind of look at this as a balance issue so pallies aren't exactly comparable to warriors. How balthor hasrett do this for regular mobs? U'll have to invest sometime in asking them.
 
The reason holding aggro on raid mobs is harder is purely because they are almost universally far, far more resistant than the exp mobs you fight. Pally aggro is based 100% on landing spells, since our taunt is more or less worthless on anything above the bare minimum level for dark blue. Obviously once you get the Divine Stun AA (unresistable stun) and Rush to Judgement, it becomes easier. Even then, though, you'll still have to be able to land other spells to hold aggro.

Your best bet is to use Flash of Light and up to two stuns in a chain. FoL is your best aggro spell, but like all debuffs, if you recast it before it wears off it generates almost no aggro. The timing works out so that you can cycle through Flash of Light, Cease, and Desist and then recast FoL just as it wears off. I have yet to find any other way of generating anywhere near as much aggro (thought I don't have Divine Stun yet). Using this system, as long as I don't get any resists, I can hold aggro steadily probably 99% of the time. A wizard burning a mob may take aggro, as might a rogue in the double damage style.

And, naturally, a Shadow Knight chain casting debuffs can out-aggro me. The downside of pally aggro generation is that it's all magic-based spells, to which (what seems to be) the vast majority of mobs are more resistant than many other types. SKs from what I've read (haven't checked the spell lines myself) have debuffs that use other resists (poison or disease) to which most mobs are far less resiliant. But that seems appropriate--SKs are intended to be the big dogs when it comes to aggro. Paladins, since the changes, are plenty good enough for me.

If you run into a paladin who's not holding aggro, there are a couple of possibilities. Most likely is that he's not using his spells right. Flash of light is enough in the large majority of groups to hold aggro. Recast it each time it wears off and you'll rarely have any trouble. A second possibility is that he doesn't have the mana regen to hold aggro. At lower levels most paladins, myself included, focus on tanking gear. We wind up with very small mana pools. In a high aggro group the mana regen may not be sufficient to chain cast aggro spells. In that case, it's up to the rest of the group to ensure that the tank doesn't lose aggro. If you're taking aggro, find out why. Then stop taking it. Whether that means concussing more often as a wizard (which should be done at the start of every fight regardless), not using DPS styles and evading more often as a rogue, FDing as a monk, or whatever--just do it. A lot of people don't seem to be capable of understanding that a part of grouping is actually working together. When your main healer has trouble keeping up heals, what do you do? You have the secondary healer help out. Likewise, if your tank is having trouble holding aggro, it's up to the other people in their group to do their part to leave aggro on the tank.
 
The Shadowknight 'terror' line of spells are all unresistable, I think.

ninja edit: The terror spells do nothing but generate hate. Before all the Pallys get huffy.
 
Given the recent paladin changes, if paladins get huffy the probably don't know how to play their class very well. SKs are meant to be the aggro kings. That's their job. They have a little more DPS than pallies, a couple of utility spells like FD and group mana tap, and lots and lots of aggro. Since the aggro changes for stun and blind, paladins can hold aggro very well, making us perfectly good tanks in any group; our emphasis is more on group/raid benefits. While SKs make better tanks on certain raid mobs (mirrors etc.), pallies make fantastic rampage tanks and the like. And we have our buffs, group heals, and self heals to balance out our lack of FD and our lower aggro levels. Paladins also get their two excellent group aggro spells: Wave of Light and Wave of Might, giving us an advantage in certain situations. There have been any number of times in groups and on raids when I've served as preliminary crowd control, getting aggro on adds with an AOE blind and spamming my self heals until they're under control. It's balanced well enough that the mobs can be slowed without changing targets, and a warrior with cmal gaunts or a good proc weapon or a SK can easily peel the main target off of me.

All in all I'd have to say that tank aggro in the end game seems quite well balanced to me *provided that a warrior has cmal gaunts*. Without those gaunts or a Ytraz or Wailfury, warriors come up a little short in a group with some good DPS. But then, maybe that's intended

The one area that might warrant some attention is the hybrid taunt skill in the lower and mid levels. This is just based on observation and conversation with others, so feel free to contradict me if parsing shows otherwise, but our taunting is more or less useless once you get above light blue or just barely db mobs. It just doesn't really ever seem to land. In the end game it doesn't really matter since you've probably almost always got mana regen buffs, and may well have some FT items; but earlier on this shortcoming can be pretty rough, since you often don't have the mana to hold aggro very well in high DPS groups.

Some possible solutions to this problem might include:
1) An upgrade to the taunt skill, if that is indeed the problem;
2) A minor mana regen on a paladin self buff line such as the proc buffs or yalp... maybe something in the range of 1 per tick around level 20, 2 per tick around 35, and 3 per tick somewhere in the 50s. It seems small enough that it wouldn't make a difference for the more mana intensive spells like heals and long duration stuns, but it would help a lot with Cease, Desist, and Flash of Light. It's also not enough that paladins would want to devote a buff slot to it in the late game. If desired, this could be made so it wouldn't stack with the clarity line--though I imagine that would probably require a separate line of spells.

Also, it's not like it's the end of the world. If the devs see such changes as unbalancing... no biggie. We can still function quite well, especially in the late game.
 
If paladins get nifty little things like that, Shadowknights better get some upgrades too. Paladins already have quite a few things over SKs.
 
Mythryn said:
If paladins get nifty little things like that, Shadowknights better get some upgrades too. Paladins already have quite a few things over SKs.
Click to expand...

Demands: Check
Claims: Check
Substantiation: None whatsoever.

I think I'll ignore this post entirely.


Very nice post though, Hasritt. I'm inclined to agree that low to mid end tanking has some issues in that Warriors don't yet have the gear/AAs to properly hold aggro in the proportions they do at the high end, and Knights don't have the mana regen.
 
At lower levels I noticed that alot of paladins have very low mana for thier levels as Hasritt suggested and its a disturbing trend paladins need mana its part of who we are as a class dont forget WIS/CHA/MANA completely when ur deciding what gear to get at lower lvls. If you think about it the difference between a 55hp ring and a 40mana 40hp ring is very large for a class that has a fast self heal and a HoT. Invest in your WIS/MANA/CHA and you will be a better paladin.

As for aggro I do tend to have some issues with it from time to time, on raids I tend to beleive its because my guild seems to think Im a Barbarian Warrior with AOE taunt and a wailfury. Which infact im not. Paladins need an extra 10-15 seconds to get the aggro a warrior can in 6 seconds with AAs and CMAL gloves etc. That being said i have tested this alot on raids and can honestly say that about 60% of the time I can pull aggro off of Linken/Coltaine chain blinding and stunning right from the get go. Sometimes it takes a while a minute even sometimes it happens instantly and the mob comes right at me. Hence my death count soaring. I have tried and tried to get aggro off of Hodge and it never happens, this is intentional as SKs are masters of all things aggro.

In groups only careless people take aggro from me pay attention and evade or FD or stop singing on pulls and you will likely not draw aggro. The only issue i have with aggro atm is bard aggro which i feel is a tad high and needs to be looked at.

Back to hasritts point.
Mana regen at low lvls.
FoL is 12 mana
Cease is 10
Desist is 25

If you cast them all in a row its
+1.5s for Fol
+2sec no cast delay
+1.5s for Cease
+2sec no cast delay
+1.75s with desist
+2sec no cast delay
------------------------
10.75s

In which first of all you are doing no dmg for 4.75 secs of. Furthermore thats 47mana to keep aggro. If you need to cast FoL as soon as it wears off to make sure aggro doesnt bounce which is what both me and hasritt do it needs to be cast about 1.25 seconds later in which case you would likely recast all 3 in a row again. Lets assume here the avg XP grp is kill mobs in 45sec. Actually lets do 30secs to be fair to all the uber DPS in the world these days.

If you follow the example of aggro above.
30s /10.75s 2x completely and 1 FOL 1 Cease.
Mana used in 30 seconds assuming not other spells needed:
47
47
12
10
-----
106

If you have constant pulls for say 4mins you have used 848 mana. Which leaves your avg low level paladin either very LOM or OOM. Assuming that you had a Breeze on the whole time which I beleive to be 2m/tick you would still have used 768mana.

So the solutions to this would be make the spells less costly, add mana regen to the paladins spell line up, or add more aggro to CnD and FoL to make it less needed to recast. I feel that the 3rd might have balancing issues however so Id stick to the 1st two.

Also FoL is a lvl 9 spell. It tends to get easily resisted by Higher lvl mobs. Perhaps add in a higher -resist check if it doesnt have one or add in a higher lvl spell. Lvl 30 blind perhaps with +aggro -resist check.

Let me know what you think.
 
Could be totally off base here, but spells used to give full aggro on live, resisted or not, if that has changed, nps.

I did notive snare seemed to be less aggro, and in certain places (bb), aggro was screwy, I was getting aggro from mobs I was nowhere near, that someone else had pulled.......

I dunno, summat just dont feel quite right, then again I am new to SoD and maybe things here are more different than I am aware of.
 
Lieff said:
Could be totally off base here, but spells used to give full aggro on live, resisted or not, if that has changed, nps.

I did notive snare seemed to be less aggro, and in certain places (bb), aggro was screwy, I was getting aggro from mobs I was nowhere near, that someone else had pulled.......

I dunno, summat just dont feel quite right, then again I am new to SoD and maybe things here are more different than I am aware of.
Click to expand...
Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here, but my impression is thus:
-Resisted spells give a much smaller amount of aggro. They do generate some amount of hate (so that mobs don't attack the nearest person), but not much at all.
-Mobs will attack the nearest person (or, it would seem, someone slightly farther away if that person is sitting) unless someone else has generated actual aggro on them. This can be done by dealing damage, stunning, debuffing, or casting a spell on them that is resisted. Most notably, it doesn't include getting within aggro radius to pull, or pulling with a ranged weapon and missing. Thus if you don't dish out some damage or cast a spell (even if resisted), it may well go after someone else in your group on the pull.

What I'm not sure about is exactly what kind of dynamic exists between sitting and aggro. My assumption is that the amount of aggro you've generated is increased, presumably by a percentage, when you sit. If that takes you up to the top of the hate list, the mob will aggro you. Raherin told me that people exploited sit aggro early on, with a pair of wizards taking turns standing, nuking, and sitting so that the mob would bounce between them and never actually get to either. To prevent this, as I understand it, a delay (I heard 10 seconds, though it seems from my experience to be variable) was implemented in sit aggro. That's why a mob will sometimes peel off seeming randomly a bit after someone in your group sits--rather than right when he or she sits down.


Anywho, that's how it seems to me, based on observation and conversation. It's possible I'm wrong. It wouldn't be the first time (fifth, to be precise).
 
Everything is based off of live aggro, so if this has changed, I am probably totally wrong.

But, some spells had an aggro mod, ie, when they landed, they would decrease the aggro from the spell. But if they were resisted, you gained the full aggro from the spell (which is why fear was a good aggro spell, after a certain level, it would not work, but would give great aggro).

The jolt line of spells, which reduce aggro, worked on live, whether resisted or not (extensive testing was done on graffes with this, and the above).

I was getting aggro in BB, from mobs that had been physically aggrod by someone else (they cast a spell, mob comes, beats on me, I wasnt sitting or nearest). I found this very strange. I also noticed I was getting faction hits, from mobs I had done nothing to, which was also odd.

Sitting increases your aggro, but if you have done nothing to a mob, it should not come over and beat you, unless the mob was only aggroed by proximity / frenzy radius (the mobs buddy would come beat you, till you stood up, then proceed to the original aggroer).

I never heard of such a delay with sit aggro, it was always instant in my experience, where you were just below the MT (or whoevers) aggro, when you sit, it would come over to you, stand, and it would ping back to the MT.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom